A river of garbage and
sewage overflows
common ground in a
squatter camp in
Alexandra, one of
some 60 townships
including the group of
32 known as Soweto
that ring predomi
nantly white
Johannesburg.
Living in flimsy shel
ters of corrugated
metal and discarded
wood, Alexandra's
perhaps 50,000 squat
ters get by without
heat, electricity,
or plumbing.
Squatter communi
ties were illegal under
apartheid laws. But ur
ban white South Africa
let them grow because
they represent a ready
source of labor for
which no services need
be provided.
HE WAS ABOUT 30. I did not get
his name. A brief eulogy
summed up his life: "He start
ed schooling in 1966. In 1973
he started working. By the
time of his death he was un
employed. He died leaving one son, a brother, a
sister, and his parents."
His and seven other coffins lay before the
platform stage in Soweto's Jabulani Stadium.
The families had volunteered their dead to rep
resent the thousands killed in bitter fighting in
South Africa's black townships between sup
porters of the African National Congress (ANC)
and the Inkatha Freedom Party.
All morning people poured in, filling 10,000